The government has officially shut down

At 12:01 am on Saturday, January 20, the federal government shut down.

Republicans and Democrats are still stuck in a standoff after failing to reach an immigration deal this week. House Republicans passed a bill on Thursday to fund the government for four weeks and extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years, after Congress had failed to reauthorize that program for the last four months.

But on a procedural vote late Friday, which needed 60 votes to advance the House spending bill, 45Senate Democrats — and four Senate Republicans — rejected it.

Democrats, spooked by the infamous White House “shithole” meeting in which President Trump rejected a proposal to address the nearly 700,000 immigrants in legal limbo after he pledged to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Democrats felt they had no choice and no other leverage but to reject the House spending bill to force DACA negotiations. They were joined by several Republicans also working on a DACA fix and angry over the inability to cut a long-term funding deal for the military.

Whether they will succeed will be determined in the coming days. Republicans are digging in to pit DACA recipients against CHIP, even though their majority had failed to make the program’s extension. Democrats believe they have a compelling case for DACA after Trump’s latest racist tirade.

It’s a standoff, for now, with no easy resolution.

What does a federal shutdown actually mean?

A government shutdown means a lot of “nonessential” government activities suddenly cease. As Vox explained, it’s not unusual for Congress to go to the brink of a shutdown; it happened several times in Trump’s first year in office alone. But it’s rare they actually don’t make the deadline.